Shirokuma Cafe Double Loot: Animate LE BD Volume 11 & Live Event DVD

A double home video release loot for Shirokuma Cafe that I got in this afternoon, one being volume 11 of Animate’s limited edition BD release for the anime while the other one is a special live event DVD release for the series that was recorded back in November last year.

Just only two more volumes to get for the anime series before it is complete!

Pictures can be enlarged by right-clicking “View Image”

Volume 11 features Tortoise on the cover.

And the original goods for this volume is a lunch band.

I haven’t listened to the bonus drama CD for this volume yet since I was more interested in watching the Shirokuma Cafe live event DVD, but the titles for the story seem to be featuring Tortoise (just like the BD covers lol) with “Welcome Tortoise” and “Tortoise Cafe”, let’s just hope Penguin has the patience to deal with his slow speech pacing XD.

Now onto the main focus of this loot; the live event DVD! Like the limited edition BD releases for the anime, this DVD was an Animate exclusive and is not available to buy from other retailers like Amazon Japan and CDJapan.

Included with the DVD was a bonus A5-size clearfile.

Animate’s product listing for the DVD also mentioned that those who have purchased this live event DVD release along with volumes 1-11 of their limited edition BD release for the anime would also receive a special campaign CD containing interviews with 11 cast voice actors from the series. When I found out about it, I knew that I probably WASN’T going to receive that bonus CD since I had purchased the 6th Animate limited edition blu-ray anime volume from Yahoo Japan Auctions instead when that particular volume went out of stock from Animate and it had seemed like there wasn’t going to be any re-stock coming.

Turned out I was right when I got in the live event DVD as no bonus CD was included in the package when I opened it. Kinda sucks that I’ve missed out on getting that CD due to just missing the chance to purchase one of the limited edition BD volume from Animate, but it is what it is. Guess I’m gonna have to spend more money in obtaining that CD on Yahoo Japan Auctions again but anyway, let’s move onto the event DVD.

This live event, titled “Shirokuma Cafe ~Sasaomoride in Yomiuri Land~” (Large Serving of Bamboo in Yomiuri Land), was recorded back on the 4th of November, 2012 and was organized by Animate where those who had purchased volumes 1-3 of Animate’s limited edition blu-ray release of the anime series had the chance to attend this special event. (According to some bloggers I found on the net, 4000 people had attended which would give some speculative evidence on the sales of the first 3 Animate LE BD volumes, although I wish there was a more credible source which would confirm the attendance numbers.)

11 of the voice cast members were also in attendance where they participated in some talk and variety games as well as some live script readings where they re-enacted a few scenes from the anime series. These 11 voice cast includes:

Takahiro Sakurai (Shirokuma)

Jun Fukuyama (Panda)

Hiroshi Kamiya (Penguin)

Aya Endo (Sasako)

Wataru Hatano (Handa)

Yuichi Nakamura (Grizzly)

Kisho Taniyama (Sloth & Black Caiman)

Takayuki Kondo (Tortoise & Kirino)

Katsuyuki Konishi (Full-time Panda)

Koki Miyata (Badger & Sea Otter)

Tokuyoshi Kawashima (Rintaro “Rin Rin” Hayashi)

While that seems like a big cast, the absence of Daisuke Ono (who does the voice for Llama-san) and Toshiyuki Morikawa (Panda Mama) made it a little bit sad for me, especially Ono’s since I’m really used to his funny stage antics with Jun Fukuyama and Hiroshi Kamiya after seeing the trio work together on the “Working!!” anime series and Wagnaria live events. Nevertheless, the event was still rather fun to watch. Two real penguins were even brought onto the stage at one point and Hiroshi Kamiya just had to get up close and personal with them leading to Takahiro saying that there’s three penguins on stage now lol.

In another segment of the show, a group of 5 cast members from the 11 were selected to play a game where they had to draw one of the various representations Panda was shown as from the anime series within a time limit.

Katsuyuki was the first to show his and he mentioned that his marker was running out of ink lol (as shown from the Japanese letters in the drawings “インクでないよ”)

Next up was Aya, who happened to draw Panda wearing a necktie from the episode where he becomes a CEO of his own company.

Kisho drew Panda in a sea otter suit from the episode where Panda requests to transfer into other different animal enclosures at the zoo.

Takahiro was a little bit more bold in drawing the “dream” Panda where Panda wants to get fit and lose weight. (with abs and nipples lol)

And finally we get to Koki, who happened to come up with the same idea as Kisho of drawing Panda in the sea otter suit lol. (which he suspects Kisho may have cheated by copying him lol)

Funnily enough, Kisho ended up being selected as the winner of the game by the host and he received a special prize…

…which turned out to be a bamboo-type fish paste XD.

Next segment involved the other 6 cast members who were not in the previous game. In this one they had to correctly guess the song title of the character ending songs and anime opening theme songs after hearing only the first 3 seconds of each one.

I laughed at the one where the anime’s 2nd opening theme song “Rough & Laugh” was played for the guys to listen to and Takayuki Kondo guessed it as “Face To Face” XD.

The final segment (before each cast member would give their thank-you messages to the audience) was a live script reading of a few scenes re-enacted from the anime series. What was funny about this was the start where Jun Fukuyama was preparing to run to the mics on stage and nearly tripping over lol. (2nd person from the left in the picture below)

The girls went crazy with the script reading below where it involved the young versions of Shirokuma and Grizzly-kun and both Takahiro and Yuichi had to put on their pre-adolescent child voices.

And that’s pretty much the main content of this DVD. I gotta say that despite the event running for just a little over an hour, it felt like a lot of things were cut out as I noticed lots of quick cutaway shots and edits during each segment (even in the middle of certain parts where a cast member would be talking only to be cut short and the host introduces the next segment straight after) which makes me suspect the event may have ran for about two hours or even more, added by the visible lights from the outdoor areas where you could still clearly see it was daytime during the start of the event and by the time it ended, it was already dark.

Some bonus video footages are included on the DVD, including post-show comments from the 11 cast members after the event ended, footages of the zoo day organised by the Shirokuma Cafe production committee featuring some penguins, a llama and a sloth, as well as the special pre-recorded audio of the pre-show and post-show event manner reminders played over the speakers.

There is actually going to be another Shirokuma Cafe live event in Japan that will be held on the 7th of July, 2013 to celebrate the Tanabata festival. Two shows are planned on that day with the first running from 1pm-2pm while the second show will run from 5:30pm til 6:30pm. It appears Toshiyuki Morikawa (Panda Mama) will be there but alas, still no Daisuke Ono :(. I still hope that event will be recorded and released on home video in the future though.

And for a little bonus on this post, here’s a video of my family cat “Kuro” watching the live event DVD. She seemed to be enjoying it a lot lol. (an animal enjoying watching a somewhat animal-related anime event XD)

OMG!! this is what I was searching for T^T
I bet it’s not available on sale anymore..I’m dying to watch it..
Lucky you to have it, because it’s so hard to take a peek on this live event, even on streaming website T^T